Artisan bread – Part 1: Making the dough

When I was a bachelorette, I used to like making my own bread once in a while. I was introduced to Artisan Bread by a friend at work. She promised me it was the easiest bread ever — she was right! This is the easiest bread to make, ever! She loaned me her book, “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day.” It didn’t take me very long to get my own.

Unfortunately I do not have that book with me right now,… long story! But I wanted to make the bread and couldn’t remember the recipe. Thank God for friends who cook! Tirus had the recipe, I asked him to forward it to me.

I have memories of my mother baking bread when I was younger. She would spend so much time kneading, then leave it to rise, then knead again before placing in the bread pans to bake! This bread does not require kneading at all! Yup, you read right. NO KNEADING!

add all the flour, mix with a wooden spoon

If you don’t plan to bake on the same day, use a container that can fit in your fridge for storage. You can also half all the ingredients to make a smaller amount of dough.

Put all the ingredients in that container, starting with the water, then the yeast and salt, stir just a little, doesn’t need to dissolve, then add all the flour.

almost there, mix till there’s no dusty dry flour patchesthere, done!cover loosely, leave for 2 hours at room temperature to risetwo hours later,…view from aboveview from the side

After it was done raising I covered is nicely and put it in the fridge. I was preparing it for making bread the next day to eat with soup.

You can store the dough in the fridge for up to 14 days and bake it in small chucks as you need it. The longer it stays in the fridge the more it matures and becomes like sourdough — which is nice, if you like sourdough loaves.

I searched around the net and found a page with the full recipe. Here is a link if you’d like to finish yours today (^_^)